Men’s basketball: Red Raiders beat Lions

Amara Aguilar

COSTA MESA - Hot shots had the Lions seeing Red Saturday night.

The Northwestern College Red Raiders of Iowa scorched the Vanguard

University men’s basketball team, 87-74, in nonconference game at the Pit

Saturday in front of 135.

The Red Raiders hit eight three-pointers, including seven in the first

half, en route to snapping the Lions’ four-game win streak.

Brandon Jacobson scored 24 points to lead the Red Raiders (12-2),

ranked No. 2 in Division II of the NAIA.

“They are a good team,” Vanguard Coach Stephen French said. “They shot

the ball real well. We gave them too many good looks. You give them too

many good looks, they are going to kill you and that’s what they did to

us. We knew what we needed to do to stop them and we didn’t do it.”

The Lions (6-8) kept up with the Red Raiders early in the first half,

cutting Northwestern’s lead to 21-19 on a two-pointer by Damion Morbley

with 11:30 left until halftime.

Vanguard got into foul trouble minutes later and the Red Raiders took

advantage.

Northwestern went on a 12-0 run, with six points coming from free

throws, to take a 42-26 lead with 4:07 left in the first half. The Lions

trailed, 48-33, at the break.

“I had problems with some of the fouls, but that was not the game,”

French said. “The game was (decided because) they did what they wanted to

do and we didn’t do what we wanted to do. They came in and penetrated,

which we knew they were going to do and we worked on stopping that. We

just didn’t execute.”

The Lions continued to struggle in the second half. Although Vanguard

seemed to put more pressure on the Red Raiders than the first half,

Northwestern held a steady advantage, taking a 59-38 lead on a layup by

Jacobson with 15:37 left in the game.

The Lions rallied when Leviticus Williamson scored on a dunk to spark

an 11-4 run with six straight Vanguard points from Morbley. The spurt cut

Northwestern’s lead to 66-55 with 9:51 remaining.

“Damion’s rebounding and scoring always lifts our team,” Vanguard

senior Shane McKim said. “I know he’ll be there every night. It’s a real

inspiration when he gets going.”

Vanguard came as close as eight points in the second half, bringing

the score to 79-71 on a two-pointer by Josh Pierson with a minute to go,

but the Red Raiders went on an 8-3 run with all of their points coming

from free throws to close out the game.

“Yeah, we came back, but honestly the (Red Raiders) took it to us at

the beginning of the second half,” French said. “That’s when we needed to

come back. Instead of us coming back into the game, they pulled away from

us and so by the time we got it in gear, it was too late.”

Morbley led the Lions with 22 points and 12 rebounds, followed by

McKim with 20 points and eight rebounds. Also chipping in were Ian Boys

(nine points, eight rebounds), Shawn Corkery (nine points) and Williamson

(seven points).

“We knew we had to dig in deep and come from behind,” McKim said. “Our

inside game is always strong. A couple of our shooters had off nights,

but I know when it comes to conference, they’ll come around.”

The Lions made only 13 of 33 field goal attempts in the first half

(39.4%) and managed to hit only five of 23 three-point attempts for the

game (21.7%).

Northwestern made eight of 15 three-point attempts (53.5%) and was

also solid at the free-throw line, hitting 21 of 28 attempts (75%).

“They shot over 50% from their three-point line,” McKim said. “That

was one of the deciding factors.”